This patent document contains material subject to copyright protection. The copyright owner, Warner Bros., a Time Warner Entertainment Company, has no objection to the reproduction of this patent document or any related materials, as they appear in the files of the Patent and Trademark Office of the United States or any other country, but otherwise reserves all rights whatsoever.
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to archival and retrieval of images for computer users, and more particularly, to a storage, retrieval, transmission, and re-creation of images that are of substantially the same quality as the original.
2. Description of Related Art
With the increasing popularity of personal computers and advancements in the telecommunication network technology, many industries have put these new innovations to improve many commercial operations. In the retail merchandising arena, for example, hosts of products such as books, music, electronics, athletic gear, etc. are available for online purchases through the Internet. By effectively utilizing the virtual stores, the merchants streamline the purchasing and delivery process for both the consumer and the retailer. In similar fashion, telecommunication networks make possible for many other industries to conduct business in a more efficient manner. To name just a few examples, other industries taking advantage of the technological innovations of today are financial institutions, travel agencies, and news/media networks. In short, a wide range of industries benefit from the use of computer technology to improve marketing, sale, and distribution of products and information.
In the motion picture and television industry, it is customary for a studio to create a set of xe2x80x9cshotsxe2x80x9d (pictures/images taken from a camera) while filming a movie, show, or event. For a large budget movie, a set of shots may contain up to thirty-thousand images. From this set of shots, the advertising/publicity division selects eighty to one-hundred images to create the xe2x80x9cselection setxe2x80x9d. The images from this selection set is used to promote the movie while the remaining images which were not included in this set are usually physically archived on-site, in a basement or a warehouse on the studio lot without much attention or care. The advertising/publicity division uses the images from this selection set to create posters, newspaper/magazine advertisements, banner ads, etc. to promote the new release of a movie. Thereafter, as the product goes through the distribution chain, every other studio division either utilizes images from the selection set, which the advertising/publicity division created, to conduct their own marketing campaign or attempts to locate a desired image from the originally archived set. For example, the home-video division picks their own images to create the packaging cover of a video cassette release of a movie, the pay-per-view division selects their shots for movie advertisements in the TV Guide(trademark), the merchandising division creates another display of shots for use in poster printings, etc. In such a manner, each division selects their own shots to create suitable composites for each appropriate occasion.
Needless to say, it is very time consuming and extremely difficult to retrieve the original images that were not included in the selection set initially created by the advertising/publicity division, since those remaining images are kept in storage without much attention to detail. The security of those images are compromised and inventory mechanisms are difficult to implement. Over time, many images are lost due to theft and lack of precise inventory control. As a result, the remaining images in the warehouse often suffer from normal damage and deterioration with the passage of time, in addition to losses due to theft and misplacement. In addition, there is the threat of loss due to natural disaster. Since the collection of images is irreplaceable, it is impossible to obtain insurance through any traditional carrier. The loss of these assets would profoundly complicate, if not destroy, a studio""s ability to get a product to market. Furthermore, since each division creates and stores their own compositions, without having a centralized archive for their final design layouts, substantial duplicate costs may be incurred for repetitive work across numerous divisions. For each division, as mentioned above, not only is the location and retrieval of a particular image time consuming, it is very difficult, if not impossible, to obtain a comprehensive grasp of how many different and unique shots are available for use at a later time. Without an effective index and search mechanism, it is indeed difficult to accurately gauge how many different images the original, cumulative set contains of a particular film or television show.
While prior art systems have attempted to address the problems described above, they fail to incorporate a high quality asset preservation feature. Previous systems are unable to re-create images that are of substantially the same quality as the original without resorting to the original reference material. Since original reference materials must always be available, previous systems serve primarily as facilitators of the image selection process.
Thus, there is a critical need for an architecture providing high quality preservation, archival, and retrieval capabilities of content (e.g., images) within a secured central system. Furthermore, it would be highly desirable for users to locate, view, retrieve, transmit, order, and re-create content that are of substantially the same quality as the original from this central system.
The present invention provides a method and apparatus for securely archiving and retrieving images from a digital image library a fast, efficient manner. Along with the goal of protecting a major corporate asset from theft and damage with the passage of time, the present invention provides an economical process whereby users from different divisions may share previously produced images and composites. With such a centralized system of storage and distribution of images, it is possible for users to take advantage of a single, comprehensive catalog/index of all content. Furthermore, the present invention provides an architecture having a design that is scalable and flexible enough to include other asset types (e.g., video and audio) in its content portfolio.
In an embodiment of the invention, a method of providing users with a centralized image processing system entails digitally archiving images and searching for particular images based on content characteristics. Connected via an Intranet, users access the image processing system with a Web-accessible graphical interface. By using pre-defined image content criteria, users are able to locate, select, and retrieve particular images stored in the system database. Once the users have selected the images, they are able to send the images to others for approval or comments, or to fulfillment facilities such as photo labs, graphic houses, or printers to order the re-created images in a specified format.